Pages

Friday, October 24, 2008

Lag boss is hard

You may remember that my final goal before November 13th was to kill something in SWP. Well, that has been achieved. Last week LoE downed Kalecgos in one attempt and Brutallus in two attempts. This week we went on to down Felmyst after 8 or 9 attempts after downing Kalecgos and Brutallus again.

Of course this was all after the patch. The bosses were nerfed and we were buffed. I'm sure the sense of accomplishment would be greater pre-patch but I'm ok with killing them post patch. This is mainly due to the fact that I just want to see the content, but it is also due to a new feature that guilds didn't have to deal with pre patch. I like to call this new feature Lag Boss.

I hate Lag Boss. After killing Kalecgos and Brutallus so quickly I started to have hope that we could clear Sunwell before the expansion. I knew that none of the bosses would be push overs. All of the fights except Brutallus require a significant amount of coordination, but it was obvious that if you could learn the fight, you could kill the boss. Unfortunately Lag is holding us back.

After downing Kal and Brut on Thursday we tried Felmyst a couple of times, but our main effort was on Monday. Unfortunately, after several hours of trying we couldn't down him and it was all due to lag in my opinion. Sure, we do have to learn the fight. We have to kite the beam. Get away from encapsulate. Dodge the dust. None of it is extremely hard but you do have to see it a time or two to know what to expect. The lag makes getting a good attempt in nearly impossible, in 10 attempts you may have 1 or 2 good ones, and those few good ones are going to expose your weaknesses if your still learning the fight.

On Wednesday, we one shot Kalecgos, four shot Brutallus after several lag related whips, then downed Felmyst after several attempts. So, Thursday was entirely dedicated to the Eredar Twins. I had high hopes that we would down them and be able to focus on Muru on Monday. Unfortunately Lag Boss prevented it. At least half of our wipes were due to lag. Many of the times it due to the Conflagged person not being able to move out of the raid. Another time was due to the misdirect not going off in time causing the Shadow twin to run up and kill the warlock tank. When we did have a decent attempt human error caused a wipe. The errors we had here was the 2nd tank pulling aggro of the first, Conflagged melee not running out and catching the tanks, and just having range problems with healing. All of this is to be expected and can be worked out, but when you have 3 or 4 lag wipes between each good attempt it takes for ever to work those issues out.

I'm still hopeful that we can clear Sunwell before the expansion is released. I think we have most of the kinks worked out of the Eredar Twins and can down them on Monday. After that we have two resets to clear the instance. I think it is possible, but it will be a whole lot easier if blizzard can fix this lag.

Toon Update:Graylo - Just raiding to get some gear upgrades and try and see new content. I was able to pick up [Thunderheart Bands] on Wednesday, which is an upgrade in two ways. First they are better then my old [Cuffs of Devastation]. Second, it gives me 5 pieces of T6 meaning I can pick up a non-tier set piece and not break my set bonus. On the other side of the loot coin I've been a little unlucky. The good caster gear in BT just hasn't been dropping. I wouldn't have a shot at some of it due to DKP, but there are improvements that no one else wants and they won't drop. Oh well.

Some of you may wonder why I care since the expansion is only 2 weeks away. I know I will replace a lot of this gear in early raiding, but after looking at some of the instance gear, I realize that most of my gear will last me to 80. So what ever improvements I make now will make my leveling easier.

Graypal - Nothing really. I've tried to get him into ZA a couple of times, but nothing has worked out. On an odd note, I have thought about trying to play him holy in the expansion.

Grayfel - My main goal for him right now is gear and badges. Again, I've been trying to upgrade his gear to make leveling easier. I have run kara with him a couple of times. Hopefully I can get another couple in before the expansion.

Grayvik - I leveled him up to 20 over the weekend. Things are going well for the most part but I am definitely having problems with survivability. First, first this is the first toon I've level this far that doesn't have any way to heal itself. Second, I think this is kind of an awkward time in all classes. The content is getting tougher but you still have relatively few abilities to save yourself. Third, I'm over confident. My Druid blows stuff up quickly, and when I level I tend to get ahead of the guide. Therefore I usually over power the mobs fairly easily. Finally, I've just got to learn the class. I forget to polymorph a lot. I also for get that I can root the mobs at times. I just need more experience.

Anyway, his days of attention are numbered. I would like to get him to 30 by the expansion but I doubt it will happen. When the expansion hits I doubt he will see the light of day for months.